


Compass

by naye



Category: One Piece
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Ficlet, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Strawhats, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye/pseuds/naye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're his crew, and he's not going to lose them ever again. This is how he will do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compass

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime after the Marinford arc. Inspired by Eiliem's Prompt "Mine" [here](http://naye.livejournal.com/735712.html#cutid2).

Usopp doesn't protest when Luffy kicks off his sandals and barges into the workshop.

He would, normally, but now - it's just so good to have his captain there. To have all of them around again.

"Usopp," Luffy says, and he looks serious. "We need to make this."

The drawing he points to nearly causes Usopp to fall over backwards because what, how is it possible that some with actual hands could draw that bad. But Luffy is looking so very earnest, so all he does is nod. "Okay. Tell me more."

By the time Luffy's finished talking, Usopp has already started sketching, and when Luffy gets distracted by Zoro and Sanji having a reunion fight, he stays.

This could be the most important thing he's ever done.

It takes a month to complete the project.

By then, the others have guessed what it is. He knows they have by the way Sanji brings him midnight snacks, and Chopper helps out with energy drinks, and Nami comes to watch the pile of coated glass bubbles and bits and pieces take shape and color.

He knows because - well, they've all contributed.

It's still an official secret, though. They're still Luffy's to present, one day when the New World stretches out before them, beautifully wide; deceptively calm.

"Hey! Come on! Captain speaking here!"

They saunter out on deck, looking up at Luffy on the Sunny's head. He grins at them. "Good! Okay."

Then he goes serious, in a way that makes them all - alert, if not alarmed. And they listen.

"Right. You know - you got lost... we all got lost. And that sucked. 'Cause there's no point being the captain if I can't have a swordsman and a navigator and a sniper and a cook and a doctor and an archaeologist and a shipwright and a musician!"

The momentary cloud across Luffy's face passes, and he is back to being sunlight. "And! That's why I've made THESE! And Usopp helped and they're great!"

He jumps down from his perch, glass beads clinking against each other, and his crew crowds around to look.

Usopp has put his soul into the handiwork, and it shows.

Not that any jeweler worth his salt would agree to call the oddly shaped, multi-colored things "bracelets", but the nakama can all see beyond the surface.

Literally beyond the surface. Every bracelet is made to fit a different wrist, and every bead is coated with different-colored raisin on the outside, and hollow on the inside.

Hollow, but not empty. In eight of the ten beads, there is a tiny scrap of paper.

And on those eight scraps of paper, an even tinier symbol shows through the tinted glass - a strawhat through red, three swords through green, a pinwheel through orange... and they're all moving. Wriggling happily, it seems, now that they're all clustered close together like this.

"See!" Luffy's voice cuts through the somewhat choked silence. "Now I'll always know where you are! You're my crew, and I'm not gonna lose you guys anymore."

Then Luffy laughs, and joy is all that is left to feel.


End file.
